SECOND TRANSMISSION FROM THE NEON GATE / 20240613 / 0900R

Last month’s unexpected celestial transmission from Nap Eyes hailed the Canadian band’s surprise return from a three-year hiatus with two new songs, the combustible “Ice Grass Underpass” (“clean, tightly wound power pop that places Chapman’s remarkable talent for lyric writing front and center,” according to The Fader) and the astral wander of “Feline Wave Race” (which Exclaim deems “quietly devastating … a beautifully patient reintroduction to the group” and Raven Sings the Blues describes as “slow blooming bliss … worth the wait”). Now, in another twist, following the free-associative surreality (and the implicit Chris Marker and explicit Nintendo 64 tributes) of “Feline Wave Race,” Nap Eyes presents a very different sort of tribute, a languorous adaptation of a phantasmagorical poem by Russian Romantic poet Alexander Pushkin (1799–1837). “Demons,” as translated into English by D. M. Thomas, depicts a perilous wintry nocturnal journey by carriage (or perhaps sleigh), framed by dialogue between its two passengers, a “master” posing quaking questions to his perceptive servant, a coachman. Half-blinded by a blizzard and in danger of losing their way and plunging “headlong into some damned ravine,” the two men are first mystified and then petrified by eerie apparitions of uncanny but uncertain spectral nature, which gradually assume form and transmogrify through the snowy scrim: a single, mischievously horse-baiting gremlin multiplies into a “a host of spirits” which solidifies into “numberless and formless devils,” finally spawning “swarm upon swarm of demons.” The occasion for this “plaintively” singing coven remains a mystery. “Is there a witch who is getting married?” the coachman speculates earnestly. “Some goblin they’re burying?”

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Despite its formal and archaic language, this is familiarly eldritch territory for Nap Eyes, who in 2021 released “Blood River,” a song inspired by their online Dungeons and Dragons campaign. Nigel manages to unravel Pushkin’s knotty, 19th-century verse into a fluid, memorable melody, as the band glides adeptly through the snow, calmly observing the fiendish scene, synth notes falling like snow.
The text of the poem also offers a sly indictment of class. It is the coachman who ultimately must first face these preternatural terrors, real or imagined, without cover of coach. It is also his lot to articulate their grotesque appearance and behavior not only to himself but also to his master. Both men may be doomed—whether metaphorically, spiritually, or literally—but the coachman holds the reins and peers more lucidly through the pall, forced to behold and name the unnamable. The demons themselves are afforded no explanation, no agency; their ceremony exists beyond reason, beyond the ruptured membrane of reality, in the superimposed realm of the supernaturally sublime.
The moon through total darkness hurrying Illuminates the snow in flight; Clouds are whirling, clouds are scurrying, Dark is the sky, and dark the night. Swarm upon swarm of demons, streaking On through this limbo without end, And with their plaintive howls and shrieking They pounce upon my heart, and rend. To be continued …

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Photo by Josh Salter.

Acknowledgments

Clean, tightly wound power pop that places Chapman’s remarkable talent for lyric writing front and center.  – The FADER Quietly devastating … a beautifully patient reintroduction to the group.  – Exclaim! Slow blooming bliss … worth the wait. – Raven Sings the Blues Masters of subtlety. Nap Eyes have made much ado about meaninglessness with rock ‘n’ roll songs that shake just offbeat and smart lyrics wrapped in bemused ennui. – NPR Music [Snapshot of a Beginner] feels as much a modest masterpiece as [The Go-Betweens’] Spring Hill Fair or [Belle and Sebastian’s] Tigermilk. What sets them apart is the fear and trembling in Nigel Chapman’s reedy monotone and guitarist Brad Labelle, who unleashes the full Verlainian screaming bluebird repertoire. – Uncut

Few songwriters write about malaise with as much charm and empathetic chill as Nigel Chapman. – Aquarium Drunkard

Brimming with passion and protest … Immediately familiar, yet bracingly distinct… one the most intriguingly idiosyncratic lyricists this side of Dan Bejar. – Pitchfork One of the most fascinating songwriters we have today. – Newsweek